I was sitting at my desk this morning, thinking about what I might post on my blog, and brooding that the news had me in something of a funk. "I am in the Slough of Despond," I thought. That provoked me to wonder about the source and real meaning of that familiar phrase. I knew that it came from John Bunyan's famous work, Pilgrim's Progress, of course, but since I have never actually read Pilgrim's Progress, I was not sure exactly what meaning Bunyan had ascribed to it. I tried Wikipedia, which, as always, was instantly helpful, and that in turn led me to click on the link in the article to the Wikipedia article on Pilgrim's Progress itself.
I read the entire synopsis of Parts One and Two, and was overwhelmed by its beauty. I had just been reading Freud"s The Future of an Illusion, and fuming at his utter tone-deafness to religion. The contrast was extremely powerful. As I read the synopsis of Bunyan's work, I found tears coming to my eyes.
I guess I shall have to pay my lapsed dues in the local Society of Unbelievers to maintain my credibility as the Village Atheist.
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Friday, 11 December 2009
A MEDITATION ON GRANDCHILDREN
You are going to have to bear with me on this one. To the left is a picture of my two grandchildren, Samuel and Athena. Samuel will be four in a few days; Athena is one and a half. They are very cute. of course. All little kids are cute, especially if they are your grandchildren. But there is something intriguing about Samuel that reminds me very much of his uncle, my younger son Tobias, at that age. There is a grace and coherence about his body language that I find quite unusual. He also exhibits a reflectiveness that is quite definitely unusual for little kids. I think I have told this story before on my blog, but I will tell it again, for new readers. The last time I was in San Francisco, quite a long time ago, Samuel was just starting really to talk. Tobias was there, along with my sister, Barbara, and all the adults decided to go out to dinner. Samuel's father and mother, Patrick and Diana, called their usual baby-sitter, who showed up to look after the children while we went out. Samuel wanted to go as well, but was told that he would be staying at home with Russlee and Athena. Samuel stamped his foot and pouted, and plunked himself down on the sofa next to me, visibly miffed. Then, after thinking for a bit, he said, "Maybe someone will fix it." Now, I actually listen to what little children say, and that struck me as an extraordinary statement. Try to think your way into the mind of the three year old Samuel. There was something he wanted, which he was not going to get, and after thinking about that, it occurred to him that perhaps one of the grownups would fix this clearly unsatisfactory situation. That comment bespeaks a degree of thoughtfulness, a clear grasp of causal relations, that is quite unusual in a boy of that age.Tobias, when he was Samuel's age, was a delightful little boy, but he also had a quality that the Romans called gravitas, which he still possesses, in a fully developed form. I hope I live long enough to see what sort of person Samuel turns out to be.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
THE HEALTH CARE REFORM PROCESS, YET AGAIN
While Harry Reid and his Gang of Ten await the CBO scoring on the latest complex compromise proposal, it might be well to pause for a moment and reflect on how this enormously important debate has developed in the past eight months or more.
It was obvious to virtually everyone, when it began, that the process would be lengthy, contentious, tedious, complex, and fraught with political manoeuvres and dangers. Five House committees, two or three Senate committees, all debating a fundamental reorientation of one seventh of the entire American economy. Nothing this complex has been attempted in generations.
At the very beginning of the process, the Republicans made a decision. Since they are not stupid -- vicious, perhaps, despicable, undoubtedly, deeply in debt to special corporate interests, inevitably, but not stupid -- I assume the decision was conscious, calculated, deliberate, and much debated in Republican circles. The decision was to try to destroy the Obama presidency by doing everything in their power to defeat any attempt at health care reform, virtually regardless of its content. They knew that they could muster forty votes in the Senate, and it was quite unclear whether Harry Reid could hold a fractious coalition of fifty-eight Democrats and two Independents. [Remember that at this point, it was not yet clear whether Al Franken would prevail in his Senate contest].
So, despite the exhausting efforts of MaxBaucus to secure a bi-partisan coalition in his committee, the Republicans steadfastly voted against everything.
And the result? They have rendered themselves completely irrelevant to the process of negotiating a final bill. Despite their endless posturing on the floor of the Senate, despite the Tea Baggers and the disruptions in summer town hall meetings, they have completely closed themselves out of the crafting of the final bill. There is no doubt that, had they chosen to engage in genuine bi-partisan negotiations, they could have played an important role in writing the bill. But they chose instead to gamble on bringing Obama down.
Now, all of this is rather new even to folks like myself who are obsessed with politics. But it cannot have been at all new to the senior members of the Republican Senate caucus. They must have been quite well aware that their chosen strategy guaranteed them no input into the bill finally brought to a vote before the two houses of Congress. They were even willing to desert their corporate patrons, who may have been counting on them to make the final bill friendlier to corporate interests. Their lust for the kill, for destroying the Obama presidency in its first year, took precedence over everything else.
And so we have the spectacle, now, of intense negotiations being conducted entirely among -- Democrats. To be sure, corporate interests are hardly unrepresented in those closed meetings. But the absence of any Republicans at the table tilts the balance of forces markedly leftward of where it would have been otherwise.
Will the Republican gamble pay off? Will they, at the last moment, peel away Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman or Evan Bayh or Mary Landrieu? I think it is clear that the answer is no. The momentum is so great now to pass something that the most those people can do is to push the bill marginally to the right.
Think what this will mean. First, it will be, and will be seen as, an enormous victory for Obama. Hence, the Republicans will have lost. Second, a wide variety of extremely important reforms and changes will have been enacted, whatever the final shape of the bill. Everyone has agreed to stop insurance companies from denying insurance to people with pre-existing conditions. Everyone has agreed that thirty million or more Americans now uninsured will become insured. There are countless other good things in the proposed legislation that are not even in dispute.
Fascinating.
It was obvious to virtually everyone, when it began, that the process would be lengthy, contentious, tedious, complex, and fraught with political manoeuvres and dangers. Five House committees, two or three Senate committees, all debating a fundamental reorientation of one seventh of the entire American economy. Nothing this complex has been attempted in generations.
At the very beginning of the process, the Republicans made a decision. Since they are not stupid -- vicious, perhaps, despicable, undoubtedly, deeply in debt to special corporate interests, inevitably, but not stupid -- I assume the decision was conscious, calculated, deliberate, and much debated in Republican circles. The decision was to try to destroy the Obama presidency by doing everything in their power to defeat any attempt at health care reform, virtually regardless of its content. They knew that they could muster forty votes in the Senate, and it was quite unclear whether Harry Reid could hold a fractious coalition of fifty-eight Democrats and two Independents. [Remember that at this point, it was not yet clear whether Al Franken would prevail in his Senate contest].
So, despite the exhausting efforts of MaxBaucus to secure a bi-partisan coalition in his committee, the Republicans steadfastly voted against everything.
And the result? They have rendered themselves completely irrelevant to the process of negotiating a final bill. Despite their endless posturing on the floor of the Senate, despite the Tea Baggers and the disruptions in summer town hall meetings, they have completely closed themselves out of the crafting of the final bill. There is no doubt that, had they chosen to engage in genuine bi-partisan negotiations, they could have played an important role in writing the bill. But they chose instead to gamble on bringing Obama down.
Now, all of this is rather new even to folks like myself who are obsessed with politics. But it cannot have been at all new to the senior members of the Republican Senate caucus. They must have been quite well aware that their chosen strategy guaranteed them no input into the bill finally brought to a vote before the two houses of Congress. They were even willing to desert their corporate patrons, who may have been counting on them to make the final bill friendlier to corporate interests. Their lust for the kill, for destroying the Obama presidency in its first year, took precedence over everything else.
And so we have the spectacle, now, of intense negotiations being conducted entirely among -- Democrats. To be sure, corporate interests are hardly unrepresented in those closed meetings. But the absence of any Republicans at the table tilts the balance of forces markedly leftward of where it would have been otherwise.
Will the Republican gamble pay off? Will they, at the last moment, peel away Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman or Evan Bayh or Mary Landrieu? I think it is clear that the answer is no. The momentum is so great now to pass something that the most those people can do is to push the bill marginally to the right.
Think what this will mean. First, it will be, and will be seen as, an enormous victory for Obama. Hence, the Republicans will have lost. Second, a wide variety of extremely important reforms and changes will have been enacted, whatever the final shape of the bill. Everyone has agreed to stop insurance companies from denying insurance to people with pre-existing conditions. Everyone has agreed that thirty million or more Americans now uninsured will become insured. There are countless other good things in the proposed legislation that are not even in dispute.
Fascinating.
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
TWISTS AND TURNS IN HEALTH CARE REFORM
I think my blog posts have made it abundantly clear that I am not shy about offering opinions on a wide range of matters, about many of which I know virtually nothing. See, for example, my strong dissent from Obama's Afghanistan policy. But the latest turn in the health care reform story has me puzzled, and I welcome all the help I can get in understanding it.
As many of you will have heard, late yesterday a group of ten Democratic Senators convened by Harry Reid reached agreement on a totally new direction for health care reform. According to reports, which are fragmentary, the so-called public option will be scrapped or set aside, and instead several new components of reform will be introduced, most notably lowering the age for a Medicare buy-in to 55 for persons who are not now covered by health insurance.
My head snapped up when I read that, because it seemed to me that this was far and away the most revolutionary proposal with any serious hope of being adopted. But maybe I am wrong. This is where I need some guidance from those wiser and more knowledgeable than myself.
Let me explain. Since the end of World War II, the foundational premise of the American health care system has been that families will obtain health insurance through the employer of the family's principal wage earner, assumed to be the father of a two parent family. That assumption fit the facts for a large number of working class or middle class families whose principal wage earner worked in a large industrial firm [U. S. Steel, General Motors, etc.] or for a branch of state, local, or the federal government. Workers generally retired at age 65 [or earlier in industries with very strong unions], leaving all but the workers with the best union contracts without health care coverage in their senior years.
As the numbers of people living well beyond sixty-five soared, a crisis of poverty among the aged developed, and the government's response [fought bitterly by the Republicans, of course] was Medicare. The crisis of health care for the poor was met with the response of Medicaid.
Medicare is a single-payer government run health care insurance plan, and it is the foundation on which is built the relatively secure economic condition of the nation's very large number of senior citizens. My wife and I are now enrolled in Medicare, and I have a very good worm's eye view of how it works. When either of us needs medical attention, we go to the doctor or medical group of our choice [UNC or Duke Health, in our case, for the most part], present a Medicare card, and without co-pays or hassles, receive good care. We pay each month for Medicare Part B, the premium for which is deducted from our Social Secutiry checks, and through my former employer, I purchase a supplementary plan that covers, among other things, prescription drugs. The Federal Government sets the amounts that it will pay to reimburse medical care providers, and periodically I receive a form in the mail that shows how much the doctor or hospital charges for the service [usually an enormous amount], how much Medicare will pay [much, much less], and how much I owe [nothing, because, as the form says, the provider has agreed to accept the Medicare payment as full reimbursement for the service.]
The new proposal being hammered out opens Medicare to some people who are still of working age -- 55. Now, here is what has me astonished. This proposal, though at first it would affect a relatively small number of people, undermines the premise on which the entire American health care system is founded. Once those 55 to 64 whose employers do not offer health insurance are given the option of buying into Medicare, how long will it be before employers stop offering health insurance? How long will it be before there is a demand to lower the cost of the buy-in to the level now charged for seniors? How long will it be before the cry goes up to lower the age to 53, 50, 45?
Am I simply all wrong, or does this look like the first hesitant step toward a single payer national health care system? The insurance industry will of course fight it tooth and nail, because it is a death sentence for them. Republicans, if they have their wits about them, should go ballistic. But employers who see the possibility of shedding the burden of offering health insurance should love it.
I welcome comments. I am really mystified about this one.
As many of you will have heard, late yesterday a group of ten Democratic Senators convened by Harry Reid reached agreement on a totally new direction for health care reform. According to reports, which are fragmentary, the so-called public option will be scrapped or set aside, and instead several new components of reform will be introduced, most notably lowering the age for a Medicare buy-in to 55 for persons who are not now covered by health insurance.
My head snapped up when I read that, because it seemed to me that this was far and away the most revolutionary proposal with any serious hope of being adopted. But maybe I am wrong. This is where I need some guidance from those wiser and more knowledgeable than myself.
Let me explain. Since the end of World War II, the foundational premise of the American health care system has been that families will obtain health insurance through the employer of the family's principal wage earner, assumed to be the father of a two parent family. That assumption fit the facts for a large number of working class or middle class families whose principal wage earner worked in a large industrial firm [U. S. Steel, General Motors, etc.] or for a branch of state, local, or the federal government. Workers generally retired at age 65 [or earlier in industries with very strong unions], leaving all but the workers with the best union contracts without health care coverage in their senior years.
As the numbers of people living well beyond sixty-five soared, a crisis of poverty among the aged developed, and the government's response [fought bitterly by the Republicans, of course] was Medicare. The crisis of health care for the poor was met with the response of Medicaid.
Medicare is a single-payer government run health care insurance plan, and it is the foundation on which is built the relatively secure economic condition of the nation's very large number of senior citizens. My wife and I are now enrolled in Medicare, and I have a very good worm's eye view of how it works. When either of us needs medical attention, we go to the doctor or medical group of our choice [UNC or Duke Health, in our case, for the most part], present a Medicare card, and without co-pays or hassles, receive good care. We pay each month for Medicare Part B, the premium for which is deducted from our Social Secutiry checks, and through my former employer, I purchase a supplementary plan that covers, among other things, prescription drugs. The Federal Government sets the amounts that it will pay to reimburse medical care providers, and periodically I receive a form in the mail that shows how much the doctor or hospital charges for the service [usually an enormous amount], how much Medicare will pay [much, much less], and how much I owe [nothing, because, as the form says, the provider has agreed to accept the Medicare payment as full reimbursement for the service.]
The new proposal being hammered out opens Medicare to some people who are still of working age -- 55. Now, here is what has me astonished. This proposal, though at first it would affect a relatively small number of people, undermines the premise on which the entire American health care system is founded. Once those 55 to 64 whose employers do not offer health insurance are given the option of buying into Medicare, how long will it be before employers stop offering health insurance? How long will it be before there is a demand to lower the cost of the buy-in to the level now charged for seniors? How long will it be before the cry goes up to lower the age to 53, 50, 45?
Am I simply all wrong, or does this look like the first hesitant step toward a single payer national health care system? The insurance industry will of course fight it tooth and nail, because it is a death sentence for them. Republicans, if they have their wits about them, should go ballistic. But employers who see the possibility of shedding the burden of offering health insurance should love it.
I welcome comments. I am really mystified about this one.
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
TRANSITIVITY, ORDINAL PREFERENCE, RATIONALITY, AND THE UNITED STATES SENATE
I was watching the Senate debate on health care yet again, and as Orrin Hatch droned on in his characteristically sanctimonious fashion, my mind began to wander. I found myself, naturally, thinking about rational choice theory, and the relationship between formal rationality and the transitivity of ordinal preference.
If I prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla ice cream, as I do, and if I also prefer vanilla ice cream to strawberry ice cream [as I also do], then, if I am rational and have transitive preferences, I ought to prefer chocolate ice cream to strawberry ice cream. This is not really a very strong rationality constraint, after all. It even allows me to prefer pistachio to any of them, which from a somewhat broader perspective is clearly insane. But surely any minimally rational person who prefers A to B and B to C will prefer A to C.
So I decided to test myself to see whether I meet the minimal requirements of formal rationality [pretty much a necessity for someone who features himself a philosopher]. I hate Orrin Hatch, I reflected. I also hate Jeff Sessions. After turning the matter over in my mind, I realized that I hate Orrin Hatch more than I hate Jeff Sessions. I mean, Sessions is a despicable pipsqueak, and arguably the stupidest person in public life. But Hatch is oily and smug. No contest. I also hate Joe Lieberman [who doesn't?]. He is what in Jewish circles is known as a passive aggressive man, someone who smiles and is sweet, and stabs you in the back. But I hate Jeff Sessions more than I hate Joe Lieberman, because at least Lieberman once actually manifested some concern for civil rights, whereas Sessions is an out and out racist.
Once I had gotten this far, I was ready to test my rationality. I hate Hatch more than Sessions and Sessions more than Lieberman. I ought, in all consistency, therefore, to hate Hatch more than Lieberman. But when I held the two before my mind -- a distasteful but necessary exercise -- I realized that the blind fury Lieberman inspires in me exceeds even the loathing I feel for Hatch. Which is a contradiction.
There it is, then. Politics has driven me crazy.
If I prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla ice cream, as I do, and if I also prefer vanilla ice cream to strawberry ice cream [as I also do], then, if I am rational and have transitive preferences, I ought to prefer chocolate ice cream to strawberry ice cream. This is not really a very strong rationality constraint, after all. It even allows me to prefer pistachio to any of them, which from a somewhat broader perspective is clearly insane. But surely any minimally rational person who prefers A to B and B to C will prefer A to C.
So I decided to test myself to see whether I meet the minimal requirements of formal rationality [pretty much a necessity for someone who features himself a philosopher]. I hate Orrin Hatch, I reflected. I also hate Jeff Sessions. After turning the matter over in my mind, I realized that I hate Orrin Hatch more than I hate Jeff Sessions. I mean, Sessions is a despicable pipsqueak, and arguably the stupidest person in public life. But Hatch is oily and smug. No contest. I also hate Joe Lieberman [who doesn't?]. He is what in Jewish circles is known as a passive aggressive man, someone who smiles and is sweet, and stabs you in the back. But I hate Jeff Sessions more than I hate Joe Lieberman, because at least Lieberman once actually manifested some concern for civil rights, whereas Sessions is an out and out racist.
Once I had gotten this far, I was ready to test my rationality. I hate Hatch more than Sessions and Sessions more than Lieberman. I ought, in all consistency, therefore, to hate Hatch more than Lieberman. But when I held the two before my mind -- a distasteful but necessary exercise -- I realized that the blind fury Lieberman inspires in me exceeds even the loathing I feel for Hatch. Which is a contradiction.
There it is, then. Politics has driven me crazy.
Monday, 7 December 2009
NARCISSISM AND THE WEB
I have always hated The Holidays, a seemingly endless series of three or even four day weekends, during which the real world stops and one is coerced into false shows of good cheer. The days get shorter, even in North Carolina cold weather sets in, and the reliable rhythms of life begin to slow perceptibly. Everything seems to be running on idle for me at the moment. I have bought and sent off Christmas presents for my two grandchildren [a real telescope for Samuel, who is turning four, and two books of fairy tales for little 18 month old Athena, even though her reading skills are, as yet, somewhat underdeveloped]. I have completed the preparations for the two courses I shall begin to teach in just about five weeks, and the health care debate in the Senate grinds on minus any real excitement.
What to do? Well, idle hands are the devil's playground, as someone else's ancestors used to say, so I fiddle with my computer and descend into embarrassing displays of narcissism. Some of you may recall that an Oxford doctoral student named Jeremy Farris caught my attention by referring to me [another bit of narcissism] as "almost an octogenarian." His blog post was actually quite friendly, and included a quotation of what he said was his favorite line from my writings. I remembered the line, but could not for the life of me recall where I had said it. Well, after completing yet another Sudoku puzzle, eating lunch, and reviewing Tanya Mears' outline for her book [see previous posts], I decided to see whether Google could find the missing passage.
Not to worry! In about seventeen seconds, there it was. The long of it is this: In 1970, I published a little book called In Defense of Anarchism. The times being what they were, it had a rather unexpected success. A bright young philosopher named Jeffrey Reiman [we were all young in those days, alas], wrote a book-length reply to my effort, called In Defense of Political Philosophy, which the original publishers, Harper and Row, agreed to publish. I was asked to write a reply to Reiman as a new Preface, which I did and lo and behold, the elusive passage turns out to be the last paragraph of that reply. Here it is:
"The belief in state authority comes naturally to men, it would appear. A band of robbers ride into town with guns drawn and demand all the gold in the bank. They are called criminals. They return the next year on the same day and repeat their demand. Again they are called criminals. They put on uniforms and return each year on the same day. Eventually, they are called tax collectors. Finally, the smallest and least offensive of the bandits rides into town unarmed and the townspeople give him their gold without struggle. The state has arrived."
As those of you who have appeared in print can perhaps attest, there is a quite peculiar erotic quality to the experience of reading one's own published words. They flow with the greatest of ease, the mind glides over them unimpeded, free of the quibbles and hesitations and doubts that attend the reading of other people's words. "Oh yes," one thinks, "well said, quite right, nicely put, so convincing, so completely comme il faut."
I think the new year can come none too soon.
What to do? Well, idle hands are the devil's playground, as someone else's ancestors used to say, so I fiddle with my computer and descend into embarrassing displays of narcissism. Some of you may recall that an Oxford doctoral student named Jeremy Farris caught my attention by referring to me [another bit of narcissism] as "almost an octogenarian." His blog post was actually quite friendly, and included a quotation of what he said was his favorite line from my writings. I remembered the line, but could not for the life of me recall where I had said it. Well, after completing yet another Sudoku puzzle, eating lunch, and reviewing Tanya Mears' outline for her book [see previous posts], I decided to see whether Google could find the missing passage.
Not to worry! In about seventeen seconds, there it was. The long of it is this: In 1970, I published a little book called In Defense of Anarchism. The times being what they were, it had a rather unexpected success. A bright young philosopher named Jeffrey Reiman [we were all young in those days, alas], wrote a book-length reply to my effort, called In Defense of Political Philosophy, which the original publishers, Harper and Row, agreed to publish. I was asked to write a reply to Reiman as a new Preface, which I did and lo and behold, the elusive passage turns out to be the last paragraph of that reply. Here it is:
"The belief in state authority comes naturally to men, it would appear. A band of robbers ride into town with guns drawn and demand all the gold in the bank. They are called criminals. They return the next year on the same day and repeat their demand. Again they are called criminals. They put on uniforms and return each year on the same day. Eventually, they are called tax collectors. Finally, the smallest and least offensive of the bandits rides into town unarmed and the townspeople give him their gold without struggle. The state has arrived."
As those of you who have appeared in print can perhaps attest, there is a quite peculiar erotic quality to the experience of reading one's own published words. They flow with the greatest of ease, the mind glides over them unimpeded, free of the quibbles and hesitations and doubts that attend the reading of other people's words. "Oh yes," one thinks, "well said, quite right, nicely put, so convincing, so completely comme il faut."
I think the new year can come none too soon.
Sunday, 6 December 2009
OF CONVENTIONS, NEIGHBORS, AND DAVID HUME
In A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume observes that agreements can arise from unspoken habits and repetitions of behavior, without explicit promises. He writes, "Two men, who pull the oars, do it by an agreement or convention, tho' they have never given promises to each other." [Book III, Part II, Section ii, for those of my readers who wish to consult the greatest work of philosophy ever written in the English language.]
Susie and I live in a three story condominium building, the first floor of which is occupied by commercial establishments. In all, there are eight apartments, four on each of the second and third floors. We are in one of the third floor condos. Each morning, two different deliverers drop two copies of the NY TIMES and three of the Wall Street Journal near the back door. [This is the first place I have lived in my entire life where the TIMES is delivered, but that is another story entirely]. As I am an early riser, I see all of these papers when I go out for my morning walk. A while ago, I discovered that the young woman at the end of our hallway is the other TIMES subscriber, and I fell into the habit of bringing up her paper, along with mine, when I came back from my walk, and dropping it in front of her door. Then, a bit later, I noticed that the WSJs have mailing labels, which identified which apartments they go to, so I brought them up as well and dropped them off on the second and third floors.
One morning, I did not go out for a walk [my old legs were aching]. When I finally stepped out of my apartment, there was my NY TIMES at my door. With not a word spoken, my neighhbors and I have collectively fallen into an agreement that the first one up will bring up everyone's paper.
Hume traces the origins of the concepts of property, obligation, and right to just such habitual patterns of reciprocal accommodation and cooperation, thereby setting himself against the social contract tradition then dominant in English langiage political theorizing.
To this day, I have not seen the inside of my neighbors' apartments, nor they mine -- very New York of us, quite unSouthern, in fact. And yet, the very first suggestion of an implicit social contract has sprouted.
Now then, what has this to do with Afghanistan or health care reform? Not a thing.
Susie and I live in a three story condominium building, the first floor of which is occupied by commercial establishments. In all, there are eight apartments, four on each of the second and third floors. We are in one of the third floor condos. Each morning, two different deliverers drop two copies of the NY TIMES and three of the Wall Street Journal near the back door. [This is the first place I have lived in my entire life where the TIMES is delivered, but that is another story entirely]. As I am an early riser, I see all of these papers when I go out for my morning walk. A while ago, I discovered that the young woman at the end of our hallway is the other TIMES subscriber, and I fell into the habit of bringing up her paper, along with mine, when I came back from my walk, and dropping it in front of her door. Then, a bit later, I noticed that the WSJs have mailing labels, which identified which apartments they go to, so I brought them up as well and dropped them off on the second and third floors.
One morning, I did not go out for a walk [my old legs were aching]. When I finally stepped out of my apartment, there was my NY TIMES at my door. With not a word spoken, my neighhbors and I have collectively fallen into an agreement that the first one up will bring up everyone's paper.
Hume traces the origins of the concepts of property, obligation, and right to just such habitual patterns of reciprocal accommodation and cooperation, thereby setting himself against the social contract tradition then dominant in English langiage political theorizing.
To this day, I have not seen the inside of my neighbors' apartments, nor they mine -- very New York of us, quite unSouthern, in fact. And yet, the very first suggestion of an implicit social contract has sprouted.
Now then, what has this to do with Afghanistan or health care reform? Not a thing.
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